New to me (but not my family) south bend lathe

Hello,
I recently inherited this lathe from my dad, who inherited it from my great grandfather. I am told that my great grandfather bought it New in 1927. It has been in my family since. I stumbled upon practical machinist by googling how lathes Work. I haven’t any idea how to use it nor make anything. I can’t wait to try though! I still need to get the table from my dad though and between all of my other tools and boxes I am quickly running out of garage space. Anyway, I’m here for probably the same reason most other people are- to learn and gain knowledge and advice. Great site to do so by the way! I made a post on the sticky asking for model and serial numbers for south bend lathes, so I’m hoping to get some good info there too. Anyway, I will try to attach pictures- hope this works. Seems difficult to do from my phone though

Next time, make your photos even smaller - no one likes large, easy-to-view photos nowadays.

Get a copy of South Bend's "How to Run a Lathe". It's a great place to start. You can buy on-line or search and find a few download.

Have fun!
Ted

South Bend Lathe Works - Publication Reprints - How To Run A Lathe 55th Edition | VintageMachinery.org How to run a lathe

South Bend Lathe Works - Publication Reprints | VintageMachinery.org Helpful info




Enjoy your lathe
The SBL Workshop
e this is a good link steve wells

Hi Jason,
Here is a link to the model of your South Bend:

http://www.wswells.com/data/catalog/23/23_5.jpg

It is a 1927 9 inch Junior X-bed (11 inches between centers)
It is a model 722-XC
It has a very rare Self Contained Chain Bench Drive.

Post more photos of the drive, and the lathe in general as there are
a lot of group members that have 9 inch Juniors, I have two, a 1928
and a 1930.

Steve

You just inherited the gateway drug to heavy iron disease. Nice 9”, you’re in for a treat once you learn to use it.

YouTube will help you greatly. Get a good bench grinder and learn how to grind and then hone sharp high speed steel tools—this machine will perform well with it, probably better than with standard insert carbide tooling until you get used to its limits.

Enjoy!

Thanks for all of the links and encouragement and the info on my machine. I sure do appreciate it. I will post up some better pics tomorrow. I did t know there were gonna be as small as they turned out. Can you guys please recommend some good projects for a complete noob to start out with? Also, I have zero tooling and trick little add ons- so if you could recommend some of the more necessary ones- I’d appreciate that as well. All I have so far is the lathe. That’s it. I have a few questions too, and one is how often does this require lubricant? What kind do you recommend? I have the little spring capped oil pots on it, but they seem like they could be a pain in the ass....but I really don’t know yet. Anyway, time for me to hit the sack. Got a new frequency drive and motor to install at work tomorrow. Thanks for all of the help so far....you all are an excellent resource. Sure wish you lived in my neighborhood haha.

Oiling each time you use it is a safe insurance of good lubrication. Old lathes don't have seals. Oil will run out of the bushings. There is a chart in the how to run a lathe pfd file of what to oil and how often.
You may want to get a lubrication kit off of ebay. There are different oils for different purposes
A good first project to get comfortable is to level and put a test bar in to show you where wear is. It will get you comfortable with the controls Google [using a test bar to set up a lathe] U tube is a good place as Thomas said.
On thing is when a new member comes on its hard to tell how much mechanical aptitude they have. So I just want to say that, that little lathe will hurt you bad or even kill. A loose shirt or sleeve will pull you right in
Its a very satisfying tool to use and make things on. Have fun with it but respect it..

Re-post after screwing up the first attempt. This YouTube clip shows what's really going on at the business end of the tool when cutting steel. I know it looks like cheese, but what you're seeing is the grain structure of steel vs. various tool geometries and coatings. Very educational, I could watch stuff like this for a long time.

Link: Iscar Chip Formation.wmv - YouTube

Go to KBC tools website..in the oil section buy a gallon of ISO32 for the spindle and in the way oil section buy a gallon of SAE20 way oil for use everywhere else.

Steve can confirm but IIRC the original spec was simply SAE20 for everything...which you could certainly still do....hopefully he sees this and chimes in as my memory can be faulty.